Year in Palm Beach (8 page)

I must say, although I have always loved maps and still keep them in the glove compartment, I do enjoy punching an address into my iPhone and having the appropriate route appear on the screen, complete with a little blue pulsating dot that tracks my progress.

Duckie and Blanco pass all the necessary tests, and the doctor hands me a certificate verifying the birds' excellent health. She also takes care of the clipping of wings and nails. Next time I'll take them to the much closer Birds off Broadway, armed with the proper papers.

Thursday, October 15

The weather continues to be warm. Dick reads me disturbing news from the Shiny Sheet: “A thirty-eight-year-old man was arrested for trying to steal five cases of Bud Light from Publix.” Book him, Danno.

We're interrupted by a singularly Palm Beach-esque courtesy call from a British-accented gentleman who is worried about our staffing needs.

“With the Palm Beach season fast approaching,” he explains, “some of our households are finding they might be understaffed. From chefs to chauffeurs, butlers to bodyguards, we offer the finest in insured and bonded household staff.”

I assure him our household is quite adequately staffed, thank him for thinking of us, and hang up.

We actually do have a butler, Hank, who has been with us since before we were married. Hank is about four feet tall, made of oak, and holds a tray with just enough room to rest a drink or two. Really all the staff we need, or can afford, or want.

Our life in Palm Beach is developing a routine. On weekdays we work for a few hours, break at midmorning to take a walk, break again for lunch and several games of cribbage, work until the end of the day, then take another walk. Many nights we go out. If we stay home, we usually cook a pasta sauce or grill something by the pool and dine outside.

So far, we have both managed to get our work done while sharing an office, though at times the lack of space and abundance of paper do become tiresome. It helps there are other places to take our work, like out by the pool or in nearby parks.

Both of us like to walk, and so far, it has been our main form of exercise in Palm Beach. I don't think I've walked so much every day since those years we lived on Peter Island, when I followed the island's notoriously steep “Five-Mile Walk” every afternoon just to stay sane.

In New Smyrna we belong to a gym and we'd meant to join a gym in Palm Beach long before now, but the house problems slowed us down. There's one just a few blocks from the cottage, but I'm somewhat afraid it might be snooty, out of our price range, and as it's “in town,” probably way too busy.

However, it makes sense to check there first, so today Dick and I walk over and meet Craig, the owner of Palm Beach Fitness, who's a walking advertisement for the benefits of working out. His rates are surprisingly reasonable, the atmosphere is casual and friendly, and, according to Craig, it's rarely crowded at the times we plan to use it. We happily join.

We leave the gym and take a long walk through the residential part of our neighborhood, never seeing another person and only rarely encountering a moving car. It still surprises me that so many of these beautifully maintained houses are empty. There are no cars parked in the driveways, no signs of activity, no people about.

Many of the houses have definite personalities, like The Invisible Man's House, so we have started giving them names. Piano House features a white grand piano through a picture window. Horse House boasts a full-size, colorfully painted statue of a horse in the front yard.

There's The Ruskies, which for some reason Dick thought was owned by Russians. It's not. Dick talked to the owner, who had flown in for a weekend, and he's as American as Derek Jeter. The name sticks though. We still call it The Ruskies.

Orchid House always has an artful grouping of Phalaenopsis orchids in the living room window. Car House is on the ocean and invariably has five or six expensive automobiles in the driveway. Then there's The Thug's House, so named because the man who lives there looks like Luca Brasi in
The Godfather
. I'm sure there will be many more to come.

Saturday, October 17

We're walking on Worth Avenue. A couple is coming toward us, pushing an old-fashioned pram, its collapsible hood covered with little blue bows. They stop, and soon three women are gathered around looking in, oohing and aahing.

“Must be a tiny baby,” I say.

“And they must be grandparents,” Dick says. “They're a bit old to have a newborn.”

We reach the pram, and I peek in. The baby is an English toy spaniel, dressed in a frilly blue party dress covered in little blue bows.

“That was a first,” Dick says.

We turn off Worth and walk toward home.

I've been curious about a store we often walk by called The Church Mouse. Dick and I can't figure out what it is. Today we go in. It turns out to be a resale shop for the Bethesda-by-the-Sea Episcopal Church. Everything in the store has been donated, from clothes and books to furniture and fine china.

Dick sees a cedar chest, the kind that's low to the ground and opens from the top. “This would be perfect to hold towels and blankets and stuff for our guest cottage,” Dick says. “It's only fifty-five dollars.”

“Sold,” I say. I go find a salesman, and we pay for the chest. The salesman says, “It's pretty heavy. If you drive your car over to that side door, we can load it from there.”

Dick says, “We don't have a car.”

The salesman looks at Dick like he fell off a turnip truck. “Oh,” he says. “Well, do you want me to hold the chest for later, when you come back with your car?”

Dick says, “No, I think it's easier if I just run home and get my hand truck.”

The salesman looks at Dick as if he's speaking Swedish. Dick walks to get the hand truck and is back in five minutes. The three of us get the chest onto the cart. It's a bit awkward, but Dick manages to roll the cart along and we make our way home.

Barney, the old fellow with the dyed black hair, spots us and, in a clipped, Long Island Lockjaw, says, “In Palm Beach one walks silly little dogs with berets. One does not walk old sea chests!”

A few seconds later, Craig, the owner of Palm Beach Fitness, passes us.

“What are you guys, hillbillies?” he says. “This is Palm Beach. You can't be rolling furniture around in the streets.”

Dick says, “Maybe we are the Clampetts, after all.”

Sunday, October 18

Today's my birthday. Dick's birthday is in August, and I'm ten months older than he is, so for two months each year I can tease him we're the same age. Yesterday I was pensive, vaguely wistful, as I usually am the day before my birthday, reflecting on the passage of time, on the fact this was the last day I'd ever be that age.

I've been this way ever since I was little. I may have been happy about turning eleven, but at the same time I was a little wistful about leaving ten. I thought about “don't blink” long before Kenny Chesney wrote the song. I knew I'd blink and be in college, blink and be starting a career, blink and be forty. Now time's going so fast I'm trying not to blink at all.

Dick and I don't give each other birthday presents but we do like to take birthday trips. This year I wanted to stay home, home being Palm Beach. We're already on a trip in a way, a year-long one.

I got a present in the mail yesterday from Sophie, my sister. She's an artist and lives in Connecticut. We're close and usually e-mail frequently, though weeks can go by without communication. This morning I open the beautifully wrapped package. Inside is a collapsible vase, for use when traveling. Indeed, it's very flat and thin. The note with it reads, “Although it's meant for traveling, I thought this little vase might come in handy in that tiny cottage you're in.”

I fill the vase with water and it stands upright. I go outside and pick a geranium and place it in the vase. It looks beautiful. Sophie's right. I don't need to wait until traveling to use it. I begin to wish all sort of things were collapsible—frying pans, stew pots, large platters, colanders, bicycles, even cars. I look around the room. How easy storage would be.

This evening I want to have my birthday dinner at Café L'Europe. We shower, dress, and walk to the restaurant. We both say hello to David, the piano player, and I pat Walker, David's big brown poodle, then Dick and I take a seat at the bar. David takes a break and comes over to join us. He's wearing black pants, a black shirt, a tan sport jacket, and sunglasses. His hair is swept back, and he looks as if he drove to work on a motorcycle. Hopefully, he didn't. David's been blind since birth.

Although Dick and I usually stop and chat with David for a few moments when he's at the piano, this is the first chance we have for real conversation.

“So,” Dick says, “I guess you've just started playing the piano?''

David laughs. “Just had my third lesson.”

“Seriously,” Dick says, “how long have you been playing?”

“Since I was three,” David says. And so begins a fascinating fifteen minutes. It turns out that David has performed around the world for many famous people, including President Clinton, Lady Bird Johnson, Walter Cronkite, James Taylor, Billy Joel, and Rose Kennedy on her 100th birthday. He tells us about a restaurant in Martha's Vineyard, David's Island House, which he owned for twenty years. And we learn that his dog, Walker, was named (by a previous owner) after Johnny Walker Black Label.

David returns to work his magic at the piano, filling the room with music, whimsically switching from Beethoven to Cole Porter to Billy Joel. We linger over dinner, stay until David stops for the evening. We take the long way home and walk along the beach. The night sky is studded with stars. What a lovely birthday.

Monday, October 19

In New Smyrna, Duckie and Blanco lived in my office, but now they live in the room where we are sharing an office. The birds are happy. Cockatiels are social and want people around. They like to have all four of us in the same room.

I'm less happy than the birds with this arrangement. It's actually a big pain. Dick and I each have a triangle-shaped corner desk with a computer on it and not much empty surface. Dick has the ability to just push stray paper out of the way and go on working. I need to know what is where and tend to make piles. Soon I have paper piles lined across the couch and sometimes the floor.

Dick is trying to accommodate my tendency to take over the room, but I can tell he finds it stressful. Somehow we managed to work on a boat, with much less space, but for some reason this office is an unexpectedly big challenge. Each of our offices in New Smyrna, the ones our renters are using, are bigger than the room we are in now, and quite perfect. This present office situation is not.

This morning I'm working to meet a deadline. Dick gets tired of the paper and decides to walk over to the Seaview Tennis Center, the town's public courts. We are tennis players and have wanted to find out where to play ever since we arrived in Palm Beach.

Dick returns, walks into the office.

“The courts are excellent,” he says. “There're seven courts, all Har-Tru, with an underground irrigation system and lighted at night. A woman named Mary is in charge; she took me around. And I met a pro, Todd, and set up a weekly hitting schedule with him.”

“Did you have to join anything?”

Dick laughs. “We can join or pay as we play. Either way, it's reasonable. There's no country club attached. No social obligations. No politics.”

Friday, October 23

“There's an Oktoberfest celebration tonight,” Dick says this morning, looking up from the Shiny Sheet.

“Across the lake at Citiplace?” I say.

“No,” Dick says, “it's actually in Palm Beach. You'll never guess where.”

I'm at a complete loss. A Palm Beach Oktoberfest sounds like an oxymoron.

“Well, it's gotta be outside,” I say. “Worth Avenue? No, that wouldn't work. Pan's Garden?”

“No, but close,” Dick says. “The Society of the Four Arts, the Sculpture Garden.”

“You're kidding. An Oktoberfest there?”

“Hard to imagine,” Dick says. “Drunks spilling beer on Churchill and FDR, dropping wursts in the flowerbeds.”

“Now I'm curious,” I say. “Want to go?”

Dick smiles and says, “Why would I want to do that? There's going to be lots of beer and food.” He calls and makes reservations.

The Oktoberfest begins tonight at five thirty. The weather is cool, the skies clear, there's a soft breeze, and it will be light for another hour. We walk over. I don't know what to expect, but if I'd lived in Palm Beach longer, surely I could have guessed.

There are a fair number of people, but it's not a crowd. No one is rowdy. A beer expert explains the origins and describes the ingredients of various brews. There are several wines and thirty-five different ales, stouts, and lagers. Dick and I stop tasting at twenty-eight. I think.

We walk home, carrying our souvenir glasses.

“What a funny Oktoberfest,” I say, “but cool. Let's go again next year.”

“Good idea,” says Dick. “It'll be a much longer walk, though.

Monday, October 26

October is coming to a close, and the weather is still summer-like. Today's walk takes us through the family blocks. Here and there I see hints of Halloween. A string of tiny, ghost-shaped lanterns wrap around a hibiscus bush. A gauzy witch rides a broom across a front door. Little tarantulas lurk among the leaves of a ficus hedge. Miniature pumpkins, each carved with a fanciful face, line the railing of a front porch.

These decorations are understated. Articles in the Shiny Sheet often refer to Palm Beach's many ordinances. I vaguely wonder if the town has one limiting pumpkin dimensions, another describing the proper size for a ghost, another, the number of tarantulas allowed.